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Wedding build hours and cooler space planner

Enter the piece counts for one wedding and see the studio hours, the crew days and the bucket space the build will demand before the flowers arrive.

Every florist who has ever taken a large wedding in a heavy month has done the same arithmetic too late: the order lands Wednesday, the cooler is already half full from another event, and the design hours needed do not fit between processing and load in. Counting it before you accept the booking is the whole difference between a busy season and a bad one.

The hour estimates below use middle of the road figures for an experienced designer working with processed stock: a bridal bouquet takes longer than a bridesmaid bouquet, boutonnieres are quick but relentless, and a large install eats a block of time no matter how simple it looks on the mood board. Adjust your own multipliers once you have timed a few builds.

Count the bridal bouquet plus every attendant and toss bouquet.

Small wearable pieces, including the ones for grandparents nobody counted.

Every guest table plus the sweetheart, bar, gift and escort arrangements.

Arch corners, hanging elements, meadow beds and any ladder work.

Unpacking, stripping, cutting and getting everything into water.

Include yourself and every freelancer working an eight hour studio day.

Your result

Design hours at the bench

34.2

Building time only, after everything is processed and in water.

Total studio hours

40.2

Processing plus bench time for the whole event, before load in.

Crew days at eight hours

1.7

How many full studio days your crew size needs to finish the build.

Buckets of processed stock

30

Roughly how many five gallon buckets the cooler has to hold at peak.

Add a day of slack if the order arrives on more than one truck or if any variety needs a long open time before it looks right.

How the hour estimates are built

The multipliers assume processed stock and a designer who has made the piece before. A bridal bouquet is counted at over an hour because of the wiring, the taping, the ribbon and the three times you take it apart. Personals are counted at a quarter hour each, which sounds generous until you are on the eleventh boutonniere at midnight. Centerpieces vary most, so raise that figure if yours are compote style with many small stems.

Large installs get a flat block because the real time goes into mechanics rather than flowers: building the frame, wrapping the base, testing that it holds, and the greening pass that always takes longer than planned. If your installs are hanging or structural, double that multiplier in your own head before you accept the date.

Cooler space is the constraint nobody quotes

Hours can be solved by adding a freelancer. Cooler space cannot. A twenty table wedding with two installs will fill roughly thirty buckets at peak, and if you have a single reach in and a converted garage, that number decides whether the order arrives in one delivery or two, and whether you can take another event the same weekend.

The practical answer for most small studios is staged delivery: hard goods and greenery earlier in the week, focal varieties as late as the vendor allows. Check the bucket count here against your real capacity before you accept the second wedding in a weekend, not after the order is placed.

Questions about this calculator

Do these hours include delivery and install time?

No, they cover processing and bench work in the studio only. Install, the ceremony to reception flip and strike are separate and belong on your delivery day timeline. Keeping them apart is also how you make sure install labor gets priced rather than absorbed.

My designers are faster than this. Should I lower the numbers?

Time three builds with a stopwatch and use your own figures. Most florists find they are faster on personals and slower on installs than they assumed. The point of the tool is the shape of the week, so your own multipliers make it sharper.

How do I use the bucket count with a small cooler?

Compare it against how many buckets your cooler actually holds with room for air to move around them. If the number is higher, split the delivery across two days or rent refrigerated space. Packing a cooler tight is how a whole order of garden roses ends up opening two days early.

More free tools and working documents

Turn that figure into a quote you can send

What you just calculated is a sanity check, not a wedding quote. A quote needs counts per piece, stems converted to bunches, a shrink allowance on the dahlias and a substitution tier written down before a shipment lands short. Book a demo and we will build one of your recipes together so you can watch the number above move as the counts get real.

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